Mayor Vincent Gray ordered the change on Friday, although the change won’t be immediate for tags in general circulation.

The mayor’s spokesman, Pedro Ribeiro, tells The Washington Post that the change follows legal and historical precedent. The District of Columbia is the legal name of the capital city. Ribeiro says the license plates said “District of Columbia” through much of the 20th Century before being changed in the 1960s.

The license plates also include the slogan “Taxation Without Representation” to reflect the fact that district residents have no voting representatives in Congress. President Barack Obama recently began using the “Taxation” plates on his official vehicles.